How to copy files sorted by name

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1

Hi,

that problem is a bit strange:

I own an old USB mp3 player which seems to play the files sorted as they were copied to it and not sorted by name. I didn’t realize this so far since always when I copied files to it they were copied sorted by name using my old notebook (Suse 8.1). Now on my new notebook I installed everything I need to rip and copied the files to the stick. I don’t know why but the Suse 11.1 doesn’t copy them name by name but in a different order. E.g. it copied the files ripped from one CD like this: track14, track10, track7, track3 … Seems to be random but it isn’t cause its always the same order. I think that is a sofisitcated access to the hd or whatever. The file system is ext3 (but this also happens with reiserfs on my desktop system). I tried konquerer and mc.

The problem is that now the stick plays track14 first, then track10 … First I thought that the stick was broken or my lil boy messed it up and set it to random play but it is always the same. So I tried it out and copied the files one by one. After that the order was correct. So that’s why I think that the problem is the stick. Is there any way to tell any file manager under linux to copy the files ordered by name?

Bye

Erik

2

The reason is that players usually play the tracks as they are encountered in the FAT filesystem. iPods are exceptions because they use playlists to control the order.

I noticed this with 11.1 too. I think what’s happened is that the directory access routines in the C library no longer sort the entries but output them as they occur on the disk, which is no particular order.

I wrote a small shell script which uses cpio to do the copy using a sorted list of files from stdin.

#!/bin/sh
dest="$1"
shift
find $* -type f | sort | cpio -pduv --block-size=128 "$dest"

You use it like this:

cpsorted /media/MP3PLAYER album1 album2 ...

where MP3PLAYER is substituted by wherever your player mounts to in /media, and the rest of the arguments are the files or directories to copy there. Take it for whatever it’s worth (not much). Sorry, no GUI version.

3

There is utility called fatsort that reorders the files on your mp3 player:

Homepage of FATSort Utility

It works fine.

I had (have) the same issue. I have to say that I ended up just getting a new mp3 player for day to day use.

4

Hi,

oic Never thought about it since it always worked. I’m not a multi media freak. I just want to listen music. :wink:

Thanks for the script. Nice piping. I was thinking about a script too with a for loop but that’s more sophisticated.

I need no GUI for copying files. I’m a linux user. :wink: Before installing 11.1 which installed me the kAudioCreator I ripped my CDs with a self made script using cdparanoia and lame. Well, with that tool it is much easier. :wink:

bye

Erik

5

Hi again,

I modified your skript a bit cause it couldn’t handle directory names with blanks:


#!/bin/sh

dest="$1"
shift
find "$@" -type f | sort | cpio -pduv --block-size=128 "$dest"

Thanks again. Now I’m happy and can listen to my music in the correct order. :slight_smile:

Bye

Erik

6

Thanks, I should have used “$@”, but I was lazy because all the media directories that I want to copy have no spaces. Glad it’s of use to you.